my sweet little lost love."

Poor Rex! how little he knew Daisy was at that self-same moment
watching with beating heart the faint light of his window through the
branches of the trees--Daisy, whom he mourned as dead, alas! dead to
him forever, shut out from his life by the rash words of that fatally
cruel promise.

CHAPTER XXI.

One thought only was uppermost in Daisy's mind as she sped swiftly
down the flower-bordered path in the moonlight, away from the husband
who was still so dear to her.

"He did not recognize me," she panted, in a little quivering voice.
"Would he have cursed me, I wonder, had he known it was I?"

Down went the little figure on her knees in the dew-spangled grass
with a sharp little cry.

"Oh, dear, what shall I do?" she cried out in sudden fright. "How
could I know she was his sister when I told her my name?" A twig fell
from the bough above her head brushed by some night-bird's wing. "He
is coming to search for me," she whispered to herself.

A tremor ran over her frame; the color flashed into her cheek and
parted lips, and a startled, wistful brightness crept into the blue
eyes.

Ah! there never could have been a love so sweetly trustful and
child-like as little Daisy's for handsome Rex, her husband in name
only.

Poor, little, innocent Daisy! if she had walked straight back to him,
crying out, "Rex, Rex, see, I am Daisy, your wife!" how much untold
sorrow might have been spared her.

Poor, little, lonely, heart-broken child-bride! how was she to know
Rex had bitterly repented and come back to claim her, alas! too late;
and how he mourned her, refusing to be comforted, and how they forced
him back from the edge of the treacherous shaft lest he should plunge
headlong down the terrible depths. Oh, if she had but known all this!

If Rex had dropped down from the clouds she could not have been more
startled and amazed at finding him in such close proximity away down
in Florida.

She remembered he had spoken to her of his mother, as he clasped her
to his heart out in the starlight of that never-to-be-forgotten night,
whispering to her of the marriage which had been the dearest wish of
his mother's heart.

She remembered how she had hid her happy, rosy, blushing face on his
breast, and asked him if he was quite sure he loved her better than
Pluma Hurlhurst, the haughty, beautiful heiress.

"Yes, my pretty little sweetheart, a thousand times better," he had
replied, emphat